


stillness in woe

by hungerpunch



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Depression, Grieving, M/M, Slight past Zayn/Danny, Very slight Niall/OMC
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-24
Updated: 2015-05-24
Packaged: 2018-03-29 10:43:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3893392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hungerpunch/pseuds/hungerpunch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Zayn gets lost, and ends up finding Niall.</p>
            </blockquote>





	stillness in woe

**Author's Note:**

  * For [icecreamsocialist](https://archiveofourown.org/users/icecreamsocialist/gifts).



> I’m too embarrassed by how wildly I deviated to even share what my prompt was, though I will say it involved Zayn taking a vow of celibacy. Lindsay, I really hope you enjoy this despite the liberties taken. 
> 
> Perhaps a somewhat obvious disclaimer, but much of this was written before March 25th, and so it is compliant with canon as we knew it at the beginning of tour rather than the end of it. 
> 
> I was lucky to get a pair of eyes on this while it was still being written, but due to my own shortcomings & poor time management, I was not able to get the final version in front of a beta. Therefore, if you notice any errors or Brit/Irish-pick things and feel generous enough to let me know, please do so in a comment so that I can fix them! Thank you very much. 
> 
> Title is from a Purity Ring song of the same name.

When Zayn reflects on the conversation, the details he remembers astound him—the smallest, most inane things. How the corner of her lower lip was chapped, the way the indentations from an idle hair elastic on her wrist felt under his finger, that their bed was made. Their bed was fucking made, for once, for God's sakes. 

Like how she held his hands the entire time she talked, and he thought, _Why are you doing this to me_? The way she said it, "We tried, Zayn," and "I don't regret a single second, but—" and that her voice trembled, but she didn't cry. She traced his mehndi tattoo and flipped his hand over, placed the ring in his palm and curled his fingers around it. 

"I wish you'd keep it," he whispered, and for some reason all he could do was offer her the smallest of smiles. Like he wanted to weep but his brain sent the signal to the wrong muscles. 

"Oh, Zayn," she laughed, but it was the beginning of a sob and he knew it. She kissed his cheek in a hurry, and then she rolled her luggage out of their room, out of their house, out of his life.

He doesn’t know how long he stood there in shock. Eventually he pulled out his phone and thumbed a numb text to Danny and Ant, a simple _Pez left me_. A speechless night spent sandwiched between the two of them, insulating it, nursing it, before sharing it with the rest of the world.

A group text to the boys, a phone call to his mum, another to management. Staving off their phone calls, their concerned looks, the endless texts. He couldn’t handle them yet; the more people he poured his heart out to, the more he brought the reality of the situation into every present moment of his life, relentless and agonizing. 

Couldn’t put off the grueling meeting with PR forever, though. They did a statement release. He had to delete his Twitter account because he couldn't bear what his own fans said about her. Movers came to get all her things out of their—his—house; she texted not to worry about the clothes. He knew she was trying to be nice, that their wardrobes were so intertwined, how would he ever figure out what was hers? Took a subsequent trip to a donation center because he didn't want any of it anyway, never wanted to see any of it again. 48 hours straight spent in his graffiti room, scribbling on the walls, hunched like an old man in one of Ant’s hoodies, sleeping on the destroyed sofa in there. 

A veritable laundry list. He's actually grateful she did it while One Direction had a break. Zayn's known grief in his life before, knows there's a process: shock, denial, anger, depression, whatever. 

Now he sits in the negative space she left behind and expects anger to come, but it just never does, leaving him a recluse with paint all over his hands. Liam tries to call him every other day, Harry orders a basket of fruit to be delivered to his house, and Zayn just. Can’t. 

"Just sit with it," Danny says one night, letting himself in off Zayn's stoop with a greasy sack of takeout in one hand and a bag of new clothes from Caroline in the other. "If you're sad, just be sad, man. Embrace it."

"Not sad," Zayn says, wholly uncertain whether or not that's true. "Just empty." Even that's a half-hearted approximation. Sometimes his chest cavity is an iron cast _full_ of lead, and Zayn can't stand up straight for how heavy it is, pulling him into the ground. Other times it's sharply hollow.

Danny winds over to where Zayn is stuffed into the corner of his couch. "Yeah, man," he says, running his one free hand through Zayn's hair gently. It's the first time Zayn's been touched in three days. "I know." He he heads to the kitchen then and starts to unpack the food, the smell of which makes Zayn's stomach roil despite the fact that he knows he needs to eat. Has been kind of forgetting about it. 

Danny says, "Maybe you need to get out." Danny says, "Maybe you should go see Louis." 

Zayn rolls his neck back against the couch, tries to see Danny out of the corner of his eye but his vision won't go that far. "Come with me?"

Danny's answering laugh is rueful, small, but still echoes against the walls of Zayn's empty empty house. "Can't, bruv. Got work."

Right. Danny is a member of society. _Some people break up with their fiancees and then go back to earning rent, Zayn, god Zayn_ , he tries to chide himself. _Get over it, you big fucking baby_. "All right," he sighs. "Maybe I'll go see Tommo."

He goes to Louis' on a Wednesday. He's not sure if it’s by design, but he appreciates that Eleanor isn't around. That Zayn doesn't have to rub the salt of their perfectly functional relationship in his wounds. 

Louis is pragmatic in his comfort. "All right," he says, hands on his hips. "Are we talking about it or are we distracting you from it?"

Zayn picks at his lower lip. "Distract me."

"Solid," Louis says, and leads him out to the Mystery Machine. 

But hanging out with Louis doesn't make him feel any different than he has been. No amount of junk food and weed inspires happiness; just makes his heart feel like a stubborn, unused engine that won't fucking turn over no matter how hard he jams the key in the ignition.

Louis seems to notice. Louis always seems to notice, or maybe he was just expecting it. He holds the door of the Mystery Machine open for Zayn after six hours and reels him into a tight hug. "You can sleep here," he offers. Zayn knows, objectively, that Louis' hands are a bit small, but they feel warm and big where they stroke down his spine through his thin t-shirt.

"Nah," he says, rolling the gravel of Louis' back drive under his shoe. He already texted for a car a half hour ago, feels guilty leaving them waiting. "But thanks."

Louis lets his hands drop to his sides. "All right. See you later?"

"Ta," Zayn says. "I'll call you soon." A lie he's been telling for four years; phone calls exhaust him on principle. 

Louis walks him around front to the car and stands on his palatial front porch with his hands stuffed in the pockets of his sweatpants. "Hey Zayn," he calls as Zayn's got one leg into the car. He sticks his tongue out. "Try getting laid."

In the moment, Zayn flips him off, letting the annoyance roll over his shoulder and off his back. But once ferried back to his own home and rugged up in a jumper he pulls out of the bag from Caroline, he thinks maybe it's not the worst idea Louis has ever had. 

In the moment, none of the girls he calls feel like the worst idea; their hands soft, their smiles sweet.

It's not until one of them goes to the press and Louis texts him: _glad to see you took my advice,_ that he realizes he's being more than careless. The story, of course, makes headlines around the world because Zayn's sex life is bigger click bait than, say, revolution in Venezuela or human rights violations in the United States. Naturally.

He gets a series of texts from Niall that are about everything but the headlines but are still obviously Niall's way of checking in on him, transparent to Zayn as ever. He means to respond this time, starting to feel like a piece of shit for all the missed calls that are racking up. Instead he takes an hour-long shower and then falls asleep marveling at how red his fingers, knees, and toes turned under the steaming water. He doesn't wake up until a screwy 4:15AM, anxiety cinched in a bowline around his clavicle. 

It isn't even that Zayn really cares about his own reputation as much as he thinks of, like. Perrie seeing it. Not that she should even care, and not that he should care about what she thinks any longer, but he does. He can't help it. It's a mottled bruise to his pride, fragile to begin with right now, that he should have a media circus about a hook up right after the most significant breakup of his life. _She's probably out there pitying me_ , he thinks. _Probably thinks I'm off the rails. Maybe I am off the rails, a bit. Fuck me_. 

"I need help," he tells Danny, a full eighteen hours later over Facetime. He pauses and scrubs a hand over his face. "Right, that sounded more drastic than I meant it to."

He feels bad because Danny is in bed. Danny is in bed because he's trying to sleep because he has to work, but instead of sleeping, he fishes a beanie out of his blankets and shoves it over his messy hair, longer than Harry's now. "M'coming," he says, and Zayn wants to tell him _no, stay, sorry for bothering you_ , but instead he just says "Thanks," and, "I'll ring you in."

"Tour starts again soon," he says when Danny shows up. "I can barely hold a conversation with management about managing a sex scandal—" he takes a breath. "I haven't kept in shape, I haven't rehearsed our songs—"

"Whoa," Danny says. "All right." He takes Zayn by the shoulders and sits him forcibly into a stool at his kitchen countertop, then goes to flick the kettle on. "I think it's time to talk about it."

Zayn heaves the spit pooling in his mouth down past the growing mass of nerves in his throat. "Talk about what?" 

Danny casts him a heavy-lidded look and doesn’t deign to answer, unimpressed. The kitchen is silent while he makes a perfect cup for Zayn—strong as hell, a little less sweet than he used to take it. Danny slides the cup onto a saucer and pushes it over before setting his hands atop the counter and squaring his shoulders. "I'll pull it like teeth if I have to, Zayn."

"No," Zayn mutters into his cup. "Just." He sets the tea down and picks at his lower lip. "I mean, what? What do you want me to say? You know what happened."

"Yeah," Danny shrugs. "And what now? How you feeling?"

"I'm not, like. I'm. I dunno."

"Sleeping in your bed yet?"

Zayn studies his tea intensely. "No." 

"What have you been doing?"

"You've seen the papers I'm sure."

Danny rolls his eyes. "That it, yeah? Got to find out like I'm one of your Twitter followers now?"

"No, fuck," Zayn groans. "For fuck's sake, Dan." He draws his hood up and pulls the strings to shield his face.

Danny sighs and ventures, "Same girl, different girls?"

"A couple," Zayn says, cleaving the answer from himself with difficulty. This is Danny. This is his, like, best friend of all time. It shouldn't be so hard to fucking talk about it. 

"Is it like, this is you exploring after being let off your leash or like. Mindless?"

"It wasn't a leash, God," Zayn says. "Perrie wasn't a leash."

"You know what I mean," Danny says, and when Zayn doesn't answer, ingratiates his tone. "All right, I'm sorry. It wasn’t like that, I know. I just meant, like. You were with her for a long time, Zayn, during an age most people do all their exploring. I'm just wondering... if this is that, now."

Zayn pulls his legs up in his chair, rests his chin on his knees. "No," he says softly. "She would have let me explore anything I wanted to. It's not like I'm a uni student fresh out from under my parents."

"So it's mindless, then?" 

"I guess," he says, closing his eyes. Every part of him feels like it weighs a thousand pounds, especially his eyelids. "It's easy. It's easy to feel, then." 

"During?"

Zayn nods. "Yeah. When you, like. Spend so much time feeling nothing at all, it's... "

"It's nice," Danny says. "I get it."

Zayn frowns grumpily. "If you already get it, then why do we have to talk about it?"

"We have to talk about it because I dragged my arse over here even though my shift starts at six in the bleeding morning. Like, clearly not talking about it isn't doing you any favors." 

Zayn's guilt ricochets in his stomach. "Sorry," he says. "Sorry." 

Danny waves his hand. "Don't be, I'm just saying. Three weeks til tour, yeah?"

"Yeah," Zayn says. “Fuck.” 

"We've got to get you in shape then."

"We?"

"Yes, we. We're devising a plan right now."

Zayn pushes the hood back off his face, peering out from the curls over his eyes. "What's the plan?"

"Well," Danny says, "let's determine what's _not_ working here."

"Sex," Zayn says. "Sex is not working. Neither is sleeping all day every day. Shit, I could have been, like,” he looks down at his hands, picks his nails, “with my family, man. Before tour starts again."

Danny gives him a sad _duh_ look. "Okay, so, tone down the sex. Limit the sleep to a normal eight hours, maybe. Eat your veggies, do your painting, see your family. You should come to the gym with me."

"Uhg."

"Hey, you're the one with a mile long catwalk, bro." 

Which is how he ends up at the gym the next day after Danny's shift, feeling alien in a sleek pair of running shoes. He lasts three minutes on the treadmill before he's panting. "Why am I doing this?" he gasps to Danny, who's effortlessly lifting at a machine across from him. "Why did I let you bring me here?"

Danny smiles at him, schadenfreude at its finest. "Because deep down you know it's good for you."

"I'm going to _die_ ,” Zayn spits, but actually, he doesn't. He doesn't die even though his body is on fire with the anguish of muscles being torn apart and mending themselves again. He doesn't die so he goes back the next day, and the day after that, and eats the protein bars Danny pushes on him, and he takes his sisters out to dinner and then spends all night leafing through childhood photos with his mum while his dad watches telly in the background. 

"S'good to see you," his dad murmurs, patting his knee when Zayn eventually sits down on the sofa next to him. "Good to see color in your cheeks."

"Thanks, Dad.”

"When do rehearsals start, sweetheart?" his mum asks. 

"Next week." 

"Oh that's lovely," she says, but it's absent. Zayn regrets every day he didn't come by and see them. He spends the rest of the week at their house, helping her reorganize and clean. Zayn would have paid for someone to come and clean regularly, never wanted his mum to lift another finger, but she refused to let him.

Windows wide open in the rare sunshine, standing elbow-to-elbow with her at the sink as they scrub dishes from lunch, he’s kind of glad she didn’t let him. The manual tasks are a welcome distraction from his thoughts. Folding half a dozen baskets of clothes as the girls go through so much laundry. It gives Zayn something to accomplish, makes him feel like maybe he folded part of his grief away.

He spends the mornings quiet with his dad, crunching cereal if they’ve been too lazy to cook. Yaser still reads the _Telegraph and Argus_ daily, and it’s a nostalgia sucker punch to see him assume the same position—tea to right, water to his left, elbows on the table, index finger poised to turn the page—as he has for over twenty years now. 

Zayn traces the tile of the floor under his chair with his toes. “Dad?” 

Yaser hums across the table. His cowlick is in the same spot as Zayn’s, wild still from an untamed bedhead. Zayn clears his throat softly. “What’s the weather today?”

Yaser flips to the penultimate page, the same page the weather’s been on Zayn’s whole life. He keeps one finger sandwiched in the middle of the paper, marking his spot. And just as he read the weather in the morning before school when Zayn was little, reads now: “High of eighteen degrees, cloudy, slight chance of rain.” 

Zayn closes his eyes, trying to linger in the warm wake of his dad’s voice. There’s a pause as Yaser shuffles the pages. 

“You want to hear what’s on, too?”

Zayn opens his eyes and looks down at his cereal, a few ‘o’s soggy in his milk now, and smiles. “Yeah, all right.” 

Without ever agreeing on it, Yaser reads the paper to him each morning the rest of the week before he has to pack his bags and head to London.

✤✤✤

The first time Zayn sees Niall again, he laughs. Niall’s walking up the drive to the rehearsal space doing the Kendrick’s hunched shuffle-dance from “i” and Zayn realizes he’d kind of forgotten what it was like to find something funny. Of course he’s laughed since Perrie left, just. He always had to think about it. Always had to cognitively recognize the social cues, the settings, always had to tell himself, _Laugh now, it’s appropriate._

There’s no thinking about it this time, seeing Niall with his chicken legs, his skinny hips, bopping to an unheard beat. “C’mere you,” he says, wrangling Niall into a hug with an arm fish-hooked around him. Niall embraces him the way “embrace” should actually be defined; swallows Zayn whole in his warm arms and his smile and pushes his newly-scruffy face into the crook of Zayn’s neck.

“Missed ya, mate. Tried textin’ you loads.”

Zayn bites the inside of his cheek. “I know, I’m sorry.” Niall smells like laundry detergent and deodorant, but not that cheap teen shit or anything. Good stuff, home stuff.

Niall rubs his back, fingertips going straight to the spot between Zayn’s shoulders that’s prone to knotting. “Ah, don’t worry. Just giving you shit.” He pulls back and adjusts his snapback, tongue sticking out. “You ready to rehearse?”

Zayn laughs again, marveling at the sensation of it. “Yeah, actually,” he says, even though just hours ago he was wondering how he would manage it. He clears his throat a bit, turning to fall into step beside Niall. “Think it’ll be good for me.”

Maybe it’s not so much the rehearsal that’s good for him as it is just being with the other lads, being ruffled and teased and included. Together they all make so much noise that, sometimes, Zayn drowns in it. Now, it’s kind of nice, their noise helping to occupy the voluminous emptiness inside him.

✤✤✤

“Hey,” he says later, sprawled across several couch cushions and, subsequently, Niall, who is curled into the opposite end of it. They’d accomplished almost nothing all day besides driving their poor choreographer up one wall and down the other. Zayn’s not sure why they even still have a choreographer at all; is grateful their rehearsals are nothing like the veritable gym workouts Perrie used to snapchat him from Little Mix’s. 

Niall rubs his knuckles against Zayn’s shin lazily. “Yeah?”

“You’ve been single since I’ve known you.” Zayn twists til he can actually see him. Niall’s just blinking at him, like _Yes, and?_ “How do you do it?”

Niall’s laugh is a shade incredulous, his eyebrows twisted in comical confusion. His hand stills on Zayn’s leg, the warmth of his palm seeping through the thin fashion denim. “What? Are you serious?”

“A little bit, yeah.”

“You literally just don’t propose a committed relationship to anyone, Zayn. Jesus.”

Zayn rolls his eyes. “Yeah, but, like. Don’t you get lonely?”

Niall’s eyes sweep downward, his lips pursing as he thinks. When he speaks, Zayn knows he’s being honest. “It’s hard to get lonely when I’m always with you lot.”

Zayn shifts, immediately protesting. “It’s different, though, innit? Not that I don’t love you guys, but. Like.”

“Yeah,” Niall says, rolling his neck back against the couch and turning his attention to the ceiling. “No offense, but like, I don’t need anything else right now. I mean, I definitely think about it, don’t get me wrong. But I also know that I have like, so much time left for all that. There’s no rush.”

“What is ‘all that’?” Zayn asks, letting go of Niall’s ankle to make air quotes.

Niall shrugs. “Y’know. Falling in love. Whatever.” It’s quiet for a moment, both of them chewing on that. “I dunno, man, I just don’t feel compelled to go all out just yet. I’ve got you lads for company, and if I need to get laid, I get laid. And if I want to treat someone, I take someone out properly, and thank ‘em for their time, and then that’s that. Nothing serious and I don’t feel, like, unfulfilled.”

Zayn doesn’t know what that’s like, really. He’s always enjoyed being a boyfriend; having someone to look after and to look after him, in every sense. To be thinking of in the quiet moments. He thinks it’s awful hard, having no one to learn intimately. He only grasps the abstract concept of what Niall means. “You’re very self-sufficient,” he says.

Niall turns his face to Zayn, grinning. “Aye.” And then, “I’ve figured out how to play a little bit of _Bold as Love_ on the guitar, wanna hear?”

✤✤✤

Where rehearsals were manageable, even enjoyable on the whole, tour is a beast of a different nature. Zayn had forgotten the unique irony of it: opening up and laying yourself bare for thousands of strangers without actually telling them anything about yourself. It makes him feel cherished but unknown, exhausted and restless at the same time.

“C’mon,” Niall says one night, kicking Zayn’s shoe. “We don’t have to go crazy.” He runs his hand through the fluff of his freshly washed, blow-dried hair. “Somewhere chill. It’ll be good.”

Zayn pauses his game of Animal Crossing and sighs. “Fine,” he says. “Just let me plant these flowers and then we can go.”

Niall directs them to a pool hall, clean and spacious but still dim. Relaxed. Zayn is suddenly grateful for all the things Niall must know about him without Zayn having to say. He orders a whiskey drink to match his new hair cut while Niall sticks with his predictable Guinness—so good it’s pitch black, head full and thick, clinging to Niall’s lips when he takes a long drink.

Zayn’s not especially good at pool but he’s played it in enough tattoo parlor waiting rooms to look like he knows what he’s doing. And anyway, it’s not like winning really matters. If he were with Louis and Liam, maybe. They’d probably have a bet in place by now, some high stakes that would include a humiliating dare. But not with Niall, who will probably rib him for a crappy corner shot but then show him how to make it better.

He watches as in between shots, Niall straightens up and glances at a group of ladies a couple tables away. He’s less than surprised when two of them peel away from the pack they’re with and sidle up to them. “Looking for someone to play winner?” the taller of the two asks.

Niall looks across the table at Zayn and shrugs. Zayn knows he’s probably going to lose and doesn’t really feel like sitting out a round making small talk with a stranger. Niall must see the hesitation on his face because he opts for a more inclusive route.”Why don’t we play teams next round?” he asks. “Losers buy drinks.” The girls have a conversation with their eyes and then nod, scooting to the side to politely let them finish their game.

Niall wins, naturally; no mercy for Zayn’s recovering heart, clearly. He leaves Zayn to reset the table while he gets another Guinness. The girls introduce themselves as Mariah and McKayla (“Our friends call us M&M,” they giggle) and end up being wicked clever at pool—making Niall really focus on his strategy, forehead furrowed in concentration. Even his best game probably won’t save them from losing. 

It’s engaging enough that Zayn forgets his surroundings, a bit, until Niall excuses himself to the restroom and pauses to nudge Zayn, murmuring in his ear, “Make yourself useful, mate.” 

Zayn licks his lips and straightens up. He thinks, normally, he might be annoyed. His drinks must be coating his bitterness. Mariah sinks the six and then the four and then thankfully, nothing else, making it Zayn’s turn. He stalls, chalking the end of his stick up, before leaning in and taking his best shot.

“Well, I’m clearly the inferior pool player,” he laughs as the cue ball bounces off the side, only barely nudging the cluster of balls he’d been aiming at. “This is more Niall’s game.” The girls laugh easily, and Zayn thinks about how long it’s been since he’s done this, but how willing he is to do it for Niall.

“Mariah’s the same,” McKayla smiles at her friend as she lines her shot up. “Taught me everything.” 

Zayn grins, watching Mariah blush. “Niall’s a good teacher, too,” he says. “I’m just a poor student.” He takes a sip of his drink and then makes eye contact with Mariah. “You two would probably get along.” 

Mariah tucks a dark curl behind her ear. “As long as he isn’t a Man U fan.” Perfect, Zayn thinks.

“Nah,” Zayn says. “Chelsea all the way.” 

“I’m sorry, you wait until I _leave_ to talk about football?” Niall gripes, returning with truly impressive speed from the loo, and while Niall can’t steer their poor team to victory, he does end up steering them back to their hotel after buying the girls their winners’ drinks.

At the hotel bar they’re given a secluded corner booth, dark leather and low amber lights. Mariah gradually shifts into Niall’s side, shiny black nails sliding across his thigh. Zayn watches his face get more and more flushed. Eventually Zayn nods at him, and Niall nods at Mariah, and Mariah nods at McKayla, who nods back. That settles that, then.

Niall and Mariah go upstairs, Niall offering his arm out to her like a proper gentleman. Zayn and McKayla kill a few more minutes before he leans away and shifts to look at her properly. “Look, I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m not, um. Really looking for anything, tonight, if you—um, were.” 

When he finally manages to drag his embarrassed gaze up, McKayla is smiling kindly. “It’s no worries,” she says, twisting a silver midi ring around her finger. “I’m ace just chatting, if you like.”

Zayn’s shoulders drop from where they’d been tensely hovering near his ears. “That’d be, nice. Actually.” McKayla giggles and he signals for another round of drinks and they shoot the shit for at least another hour before she straightens up in the booth and tries to hide a yawn against the back of her wrist. Zayn calls her a car and gives her a hug, and once she’s gone he goes up to his room feeling, surprisingly, pretty good.

He catches Niall at breakfast the next morning, which is unusual. It means Niall must have slept in, as he’s normally up first with Liam.

He squeezes the back of Niall’s arm as he gets in line behind him for eggs. “If you’re just getting up, must have been quite a late night, young Horan.”

Niall laughs as he receives a heaping plate of scrambled eggs and sausage from Sarah. “Must have been, I reckon,” he says, and Zayn doesn’t miss his ears turning pink. “Sorry for bailing on a lads night.” 

“Nah, don’t be,” Zayn says. “Had a good time, actually. Just ended up talking a while, then she went home.”

Zayn thinks Niall might nudge his elbow, rib him a little. Just ‘cause that’s what they do, all give each other shit. But instead Niall peers at him quietly, eyes flitting fast from point to point of Zayn’s face. Eventually he nods. “Good, I’m glad you got out.” 

“I mean,” Zayn pretends to scoff. “I’m not sure it beat planting gardens in Animal Crossing, like.” Niall makes a farting noise in response; Zayn knows it’s all bluff. Niall loves a bit of Animal Crossing, too. “Where you sitting?” he asks, and when Niall points the table out—with Sandy, Mark, and Josh—he nods. “Save me a seat, yeah?”

By the time he gets an omelet cooked up and a glass of orange juice, Sandy and Mark are gone and Josh has his nose glued to a highly involved game of Kim Kardashian: Hollywood. Zayn observes a faint bruise on Niall’s neck as he takes his seat and tsk’s. “Shouldn’t have let her bite,” he says. “Above the neck line? Have fun seeing that all over Twitter.”

Niall leans back in his chair and smiles, tongue swiping over the top row of his teeth like a cat. “I will,” he says, and Zayn laughs, reaching out to flick his knee.

“Ya filthy animal,” he says, and Niall just keeps smiling around a big bite of his scrambled eggs.

✤✤✤

Zayn isn’t really expecting Niall to ask him out again anytime soon after that; they’re all aware he has a socializing quota that’s easy to fill. Yet later that same month—it’s all Zayn can do to keep track of months, since days and locations move so quickly—he finds Niall kicking at his shoe again. And for some reason, he agrees.

Initially, Liam is supposed to go with them but realizes he has a standing Skype date with Sophia. Zayn understands. Niall just shrugs, ends up roping a couple of the sound tech lads into it. Zayn doesn’t realize until they’ve walked in, flanked by Preston and Basil, that it’s an arcade bar. He could kiss Niall for how giddy he gets.

They get beers and cups of tokens and stroll around the gigantic wealth of video games, vintage, retro, and modern. He really does kiss Niall’s cheek when they find the 1989 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game. He used to spend whole nights trying to beat it, so he’s pleasantly surprised at how far he and Niall manage to make it before dying. Niall’s smile glints from all the glowing screens and Zayn can’t help but reach over and chuck him gently under the chin for it.

After they’ve tired themselves out in a massive room dedicated strictly to pinball machines, they wind up back at the bar in front, Preston and Basil hovering discreetly. Zayn orders another beer since Niall’s having one and then he accidentally preoccupies the bartender for ten minutes to talk in earnest about her tattoos. She pulls an apologetic face as she leaves to serve other customers and he makes a mental note to tip her especially well.

Once she’s out of earshot, Niall raises his eyebrows. “Haven’t seen you that talkative in ages.” Zayn blushes, but before he can say a word, Niall’s asking, “You wanna get her number? Wait til she’s off or summat?”

Zayn’s grip around his slippery glass tightens a fraction. “Nah,” he says, casual, eyes wandering around the room for a point of contact. “I’m good, like. Thanks, mate.” 

Niall swivels so that their knees brush. “I’m not tryin’ to be an asshole or anything, yeah? Just. Y’know.” 

“No, I know,” Zayn says, looking down. “Don’t worry. Lou told me to get laid, too.” It’s pretty standard advice: to get over someone, get under someone else. He tried that, though, and it didn’t quite work out for him.

“You don’t wanna?” Niall says, and it’s such a genuine question versus an accusation, no judgment, no pressure. It’s incredible really, how Niall can turn asking about his sex drive into a sincere expression of concern. 

“Well, I had a bit of a scandal back there, not sure if you noticed,” Zayn says, wry. 

Niall tips his beer in salute to the point. “Fair.” 

Zayn goes still for a moment before sighing. “I dunno, I’m just like. I’m trying not to get involved, so much. Thought maybe—uhg,” he groans, scrubbing the back of his neck in irritation at his failure to articulate. “I’m kind of putting off sex, like, for the moment.”

Niall laughs, but it’s kind. “Was that so hard to say?” He puts his hands up in the air as if to frame a headline: “Zayn Malik takes vow of celibacy,” he intones dramatically. “Front page above the fold, I bet.”

Zayn can’t help a smile, too, as much as he tries to hold a straight face. “I hate you,” he cracks, laughing. “It’s not all that.” 

But Niall’s already got it up on his phone. “Celibacy,” he reads. “The act of abstaining from marriage or sexual relations.” He squints at his screen and frowns. “Doesn’t say if your hand counts as a relation.”

Zayn cuffs him lightly, feels the heat in his face. “You lump.”

Niall pockets his phone. “Does it make you feel weird if we go out then, and like, I pull? Like, were—were you uncomfortable with the girls at the pool hall?”

Sometimes Niall goes from joking to earnest in a heartbeat like that, so fast Zayn can get dizzy. He takes in the wrinkle of concern in Niall’s forehead, how Niall’s biting at the same red spot of his thumb nail that he has been all day. “No,” Zayn says. “I mean, it ended up fine for us, yeah? Like. Of course, I don’t mind, Niall. I get it.” 

Niall nods, a short sharp thing that’s almost more to himself. “But you’d let me know, right? You’ll tell me if there’s a problem?”

Zayn feels a warm fondness unfold in his chest, pleasant and humming. “Yes,” he says, reaching out to poke Niall’s stomach playfully. “I know I can tell you anything.”

✤✤✤

“If you were stuck on an island, which one of us would you take?”

“Liam,” Harry says immediately, as if he’s often entertained the idea. “I feel like with those forearm muscles you probably would give exceptional handies.”

Liam smiles winningly. “Thanks, Harry,” he says. Liam enjoys being complimented on his body regardless of context. “I’d actually take you, as well. I figure you would be able to make something good to eat out of like, berries and grass.”

Harry pats Liam’s knee. “You’ve touched me, Leemo,” he says. “I appreciate that.”

“It actually kind of makes sense,” Zayn says. “You’ve got one hunter,” he points to Liam, “and one gatherer,” he points to Harry. 

“Well, I was going to say you, Zayn,” Niall says. “But neither of us could hunt.” 

“You and I would just starve to death, Ni,” Zayn laments. 

“Nah,” Niall says. “I’d research plants. We’d be fine.” 

Louis snorts. “How would you research on a deserted island, genius?” 

Niall raises his eyebrow and then turns his phone to show them he’s already pulled up a list of edible plants. “I’m getting a head start. Just in case, y’know, this ever actually happens.”

“I changed my mind,” Liam says, eliciting an extremely pathetic pout from Harry. “Niall would be best prepared for all this.”

“Shove off,” Zayn says. “You can’t just steal my survival buddy like that.” 

“Yeah, sorry Liam,” Niall smiles benevolently, reaching over to rub Liam’s arm apologetically. “I’m Zayn’s survival buddy.”

✤✤✤

“Hey,” Zayn says, leaning against the wall outside of Niall’s bunk. “You got plans tonight?”

“Well, I was gonna go for a drink with Mark,” Niall says, looking up from his phone. He’s sprawled out about as much as you can sprawl in the bunks, head tucked atop a folded arm, freshly showered hair drying flat and soft. “But I’m not sold on it, if you have a better offer.” 

Zayn shrugs. Niall’s been the easiest person for him to hang out with, lately, but Zayn definitely isn’t up to going out. Even the chillest of pubs with Mark, who is a chill person as well, doesn’t stand a chance against Zayn’s sweatpants and a plate of spicy chicken from Sarah’s kitchen. He pulls a DVD of _Pacific Rim_ out of his hoodie pouch. “Was hoping I could seduce you into a movie night, actually. But I mean, if Mark awaits you…”

Niall rolls his eyes fondly. “Shut up, Mark won’t care. I’ll text him now.” 

It’s only after they load up in the kitchen and get settled in the back of the bus, sequestered in a mountain of pillows with their plates, that Louis and Liam pop in from kicking a football around. “Oh,” Louis says. “Look at this, Liam. We’ve found a pair of lovebirds.”

“Yep,” Niall says. “It’s true. You’re disturbing our nest, thanks.”

“Aww,” Liam smiles. “I’m glad you’re finally watching that, Zayn,” he says, motioning to the DVD box on the table. “You have to tell me what you think later!” 

“I will,” Zayn promises, and then Louis makes a quip about being excluded so Niall throws a roll at his head, and then gets sad when he realizes he threw his only roll. Zayn sighs and splits his in half, edging the bread onto Niall’s plate as he hits play on the remote. 

The movie is good, but watching Niall’s reactions is almost better. That’s why Zayn loves a movie night with him: he’ll chew his nails, throw his hands in the air, whisper inventive curse words at the screen. Cries at a happy part or a sad part. A film with Niall is entertainment on multiple levels. Zayn wriggles his toes under Niall’s skinny thigh and smiles quietly at him as he laughs over the banter between Newton and Gottlieb. Drawing the sleeves of his hoodie over his knuckles, Zayn leans back and thinks this is exactly what he needed, settled deep in the cushions with belly full of his favorite food. 

“Thanks for staying in with me,” he murmurs to Niall during a quiet part.

Niall looks over at him and nods vigorously. “Any time, Zayn. Love you.” 

“Love you, too, dope,” Zayn replies, sinking further into his comfortable sloth state. 

He doesn’t realize he passed out until he’s waking up hours later, bleary. Outside the bus windows, the world is pitch black. There’s a heavy weight on his chest that, upon inspection, turns out to be Niall, breathing deeply and drooling on Zayn’s neck. Zayn only has enough care in him to rearrange them into a slightly more comfortable position, pull a blanket up, and drop back off to sleep with his face in Niall’s shoulder.

✤✤✤

About a week later, Zayn’s more restless than usual after a concert. Louis looks soft and fresh from the showers, ready for a smoke and some video games and, normally, Zayn would join him in an instant. But the crowd had screamed for his parts extra loud and he’d been on fire all night; now he’s conscious of his electric kinetic energy—tapping his fingers along his thigh as he thinks of all the potential possibilities. He just needs something _more_ tonight.

He takes out his phone and swipes out a message to Niall: _Plans bro?_ Zayn sees the read receipt almost immediately, but Niall doesn’t reply right away. Zayn shuffles around doing menial tasks for several minutes until his phone lights up again.

_Yeh goin out. Not sure if it would be your thing though zaynie_

Zayn frowns. He’s pretty much down for most things at this point. _Where you headed?_

_Come up. 2815_

Zayn checks his hair and fixes his jacket before stepping off the bus and crossing the parking lot to the hotel. 

He only has to knock once before Niall lets him in, instantly pivoting away from the door and heading for the bathroom while pulling a shirt on over his head. 

“Phone’s on the desk,” he says, and it would be flippant if you didn’t know him. To Zayn, the undercurrent of nerves is obvious, Niall’s tone clipped instead of his normal lush lilt.

Zayn moves to the desk and picks up Niall’s phone. “Let me guess your password,” he says. “Is it Theo’s birthday?” He’s mostly kidding, but it works. “Bro, you need something better than that.” He quiets as he reads the text conversation open; feels his eyes widen. “Niall,” he says. “Is this a booty call?” He double checks the contact name. “From someone named Eric?”

The running tap in the bathroom stops abruptly and Niall comes out, wiping his hands on a towel and not looking at Zayn. “Well, it’s an invitation to a party, actually. I see you scrolled up.” 

Zayn holds the phone up. “He straight up said, ‘Been missing your cute ass.’ With a _dick pic_ attached. I have questions.”

It’s not as though when you’ve been as close as One Direction have been to each other, something like this could totally take you by surprise. Still, Zayn finds his mind reeling.

Niall sits down on the bed, runs a hand through his hair. “What are your questions?”

“Well, for one,” Zayn starts, “You obviously know this guy. He’s been _missing_ your ass. Is this, like, a thing?”

Niall shrugs, and Zayn suddenly feels like a parent scolding a child, which is the opposite of what he wants, so he sits down beside Niall to put them on an even level and hands his phone back. “We’ve hooked up before, yeah. When I’m in this general region,” Niall laughs nervously. “But it’s totally casual, like. We’re not. Anything, Zayn.”

Zayn presses his side against Niall’s a fraction, gentle points of contact to reassure him that Zayn is _there_ , in every sense of the word. “But, like. You’ve been doing this, though? In secret?”

Niall shakes his head. “I know I should have told you all, but it was easier not to. Especially since, like. I still like girls, right? So I never felt fake when we went out and stuff.” He scratches at the back of his neck bashfully. “Not fully, anyway.” And it’s that quantifier that gives away more than he would probably like, there.

“But you…” Zayn trails. “I mean, we’ve all had these conversations. We’ve all like, experimented to some degree, you know that. Did we make you feel like—” Zayn’s swallows “—like you couldn’t tell us?”

Niall sighs and leans his head on Zayn’s shoulder. “Not at all, mate. You gotta trust me when I say it was more about me, not you lot.”

“Okay,” Zayn says quietly. 

“If there had ever been anything real, a real relationship, I would have told you,” Niall says. The conviction in his voice makes Zayn believe him. “It just felt like, why go through all that, you know, if not for something real? Something good. Right? Didn’t seem worth it.” 

“ _Niall_ ,” Zayn laments, listing against him. “Every part of you is worth it.” He reels Niall in, drops a fleeting kiss to his cheek. “It’s worth it to me.”

“I know,” Niall says, and he’s fidgeting with his hands so much that Zayn reaches over to take one, straightening his fingers out and rubbing a thumb over his red knuckles. “That’s why I invited you to the party.” He glances up and his nervous gaze strikes Zayn sharply, feels his stomach twist over the idea that if Zayn hadn’t asked, nobody would know where Niall was going tonight.

A cavern yawns open inside Zayn’s chest, that Niall’s been carrying this alone. As if he couldn’t have friendship, camaraderie, in this. Zayn licks his lips and asks, “Am I up to dress code?” and Niall laughs, relieved, a pleasant warmth in his eyes.

“Zayn, you could be starkers and you’d be up to code.”

It turns out the code is non-existent because it’s a house party. Zayn isn’t sure whether that makes him more or less nervous than going out to a club and risking paparazzi, but Niall reassures him it’s a good group.

For the evening, he avoids the dabs and booze offered to him and sticks with his own pre-rolled spliffs. “What?” he asks when Niall looks at him, incredulous. “I’m picky.” Niall laughs and tries to cajole him into beer pong but Zayn is plenty good to sit out and chat with one of the girls waiting for her turn. Almost as a rule, Zayn can’t stand small talk, but she compliments his sharp outfit right away and they wind up getting into designers. After years of being under Caroline’s careful watch, he’s pleased he can actually hold his own in a legitimate conversation about fashion these days.

Niall, for his part, is doing his best to keep Eric close to him without making it obvious. They’re class at it, really, Zayn observes. Despite becoming progressively intoxicated as the night goes on, they never falter—not one lingering hand or eye. If Zayn didn’t _know_ , he’d never suspect a thing. But because he does know, he can read Niall’s twitches and fidgets like the entire language that they are.

“You can’t wait to bust a move, huh?” he says into Niall’s ear as they’re poring over playlists at the two hour mark. 

Niall smiles but talks through his teeth as he navigates Spotify. “You have no idea.” 

They’re all just this side of drunk at the end of it that Basil feels it necessary to shepherd them along in a pack, in and out of the same car and into the hotel, Zayn favoring a real bed and a scorching shower after a night out instead of the bus. It should be awkward being in such a confined space with Niall and a guy he’s about to shag, but Eric is perfectly behaved. At least, until they get in the lift together.

Eric leans over Niall, curling into his space until he’s mouthing at his neck and Niall, exceptionally flushed and charmingly inebriated, giggles as he tilts his head back. Zayn has seen far more erotic things happen in front of his face and yet his eyes still go to find the ceiling. Unfortunately, the ceiling is a mirror, and Zayn’s eyes track from his own reflection to the bowed heads of Niall and Eric, watching Eric press a hand into Niall’s shoulder. 

Zayn shakes himself and shuts his eyes altogether instead, shifting his weight back against the railing. 

“Save it, lads,” Basil says, good-naturedly taking the piss, but Zayn find himself grateful. There’s the sound of shuffling steps and then, in not even an approximation of a whisper, Eric says, “Your friend joining us, Niall?”

Zayn wills his eyes not to fly open, hears Niall’s instant laughter, so loud in the small space. “Zayn’s not that way, mate,” he says, and then their floor is up and Basil leads them out and down the hall to their respective rooms.

Inside his own room, stripped of his shirt and trying to decide whether or not he has the energy to shower, Zayn can’t stop thinking of what just happened. He scrubs through the scruff of his face with a distracted hand and tugs on a pair of shorts before letting himself out onto the balcony for a smoke. He lights up and and replays Niall’s derisive _Zayn’s not that way_ over and over again his head.

It wasn’t exactly dismissive, but more like. More like Niall thought he was doing Zayn a favor; not wanting Zayn to have to field a potentially invasive question. Or maybe he was even embarrassed, Zayn thinks. 

He stretches his legs out on the balcony chair and looks up at the night sky. It’s too smoggy to make out any stars, but it’s still a nice sight. He can’t figure out why that one little comment rubbed him so wrong. He knows, in his gut, that it’s the automatic assumption that hurt him. Not even the exclusion from the night, that’s not his problem, he reckons. Just: _Zayn’s not that way._ Is that what Niall thinks? Is that the truth? Niall’s never even asked. He hates having his feelings decided for him, is the thing. Perrie used to do that, sometimes—tell him he wasn’t really sorry, or that something must not actually make him happy. 

“I’m the only one who knows my emotions,” he’d say back, angered at the idea that someone might be more of an authority on him than his own self. “Nobody can tell me how _I’m_ feeling, what _I_ want.” 

Trying to soothe his suddenly rattling nerves, he takes a deep drag. Niall made one remark. It’s hardly the same thing, he tells himself. He forces Perrie out of his mind. Pulls his phone out and clicks through to a playlist he made specifically for moods when he was tired and couldn’t handle loud noises, but couldn’t afford to unplug from the world and fall asleep yet, either.

He gets a full minute into Gallant’s “Open Up” before he finds his thoughts straying again. Eric was tall and burly, is that Niall’s type? Why does he care about Niall’s type? 

The night air is warm against his bare chest but Zayn draws his legs up to curl inward anyway, some primal comfort in being tucked up small. “I definitely didn’t want to shag that bloke,” Zayn says aloud to himself, ashing his cigarette over the side of the chair. “Would I shag other blokes?” Zayn shrugs. “Not opposed to it.”

Why didn’t Niall say anything else? Instead, he made it seem like the only reason they weren’t all about to fuck was because _Zayn_ had the problem. Does that mean if he didn’t, Niall would have had sex with him? Or at least, sex where he was involved?

Zayn huffs out an aggravated, "Uhg," and pauses the track, swiping over to text Danny: _You awake?_

It takes a couple minutes, but Danny pings back: _Yea whats up?_

_Can I call_

_Give me a mo_

A couple minutes later, Danny’s face is lighting up his screen in the dark. “All right?” Danny asks first.

“Sorry,” Zayn says reflexively. “Were you busy? Should have asked that first, but.”

“Nah. At this party with Ant, s'kind of a bust. Moved into an empty room is all.”

Zayn tosses the stub of his cigarette away. “Mate, shit, I didn’t mean to interrupt.” 

“No, Zayn,” Danny says, patient. “Talk to me?”

Sitting up, Zayn crosses his legs and hunches over, as if the stars might overhear his phone call. “Tell me it’s stupid to be jealous that Niall got pulled tonight.”

Danny snorts, as if he had been expecting a much bigger problem. “You could pull anyone whenever you wanted.” 

“No, not—not jealous _of_ Niall, like. Like, jealous of the, um… the person who pulled him.”

“Am I following you here?” Danny says. “Are you having another ‘I’m-not-totally-straight’ crisis?”

“Oh my god,” Zayn says.

“We do this like every couple years, Zayn. It’s been established, I thought.”

Zayn is glad Danny’s not there to see him blushing because, of course, he’s right. “Okay, I know, all right, like. But, there’s like, a clear difference in between finding men attractive sometimes and _liking Niall_ ,” he hisses out, damning himself.

“Oh, so you _like_ Niall?”

“Fuck my life,” Zayn mutters, rubbing his eyes. “I don’t know. I—I like, wasn’t thinking.” In a smaller voice: “God, maybe. Maybe I do. What if I _do_?”

“I think there are far worse people you could maybe have a crush on.”

“A crush!” Zayn says. “Like I’m ten. I’ve been a bloody fiancé and now I have a crush.” 

“Hey,” Danny cuts in. “That’s okay, you know. Crushes are normal.” 

“Not on your best friends, they're not,” Zayn says.

He can almost hear Danny smiling when he reminds Zayn, “Didn’t stop us, did it?”

A fist closes over Zayn’s heart but instead of feeling squeezed he feels protected, anchored. He smiles, too; hopes Danny can feel it across the distance. “Ah…” he trails, thinking of those nervous first kisses, and their final one. “You were too good for me.”

Danny snickers. “I was the best gay crisis of all.” There’s the sound of creaking wood; Zayn wonders if he’s pacing. “I’m just saying, like, it didn’t ruin us, did it? Like, it wasn’t meant to be or whatever, but look at us now. Still strong, yeah?”

Zayn leans back and looks out from the balcony, the bubbling clusters of city lights. “Still strong,” he whispers. “Yeah.” 

“Zayn,” Danny says, soft. “Get some sleep. It’ll be clearer in the morning.” 

Zayn nods. “All right.”

“Love you, bro.” 

“Love you, too.”

✤✤✤

There are few instances in which Danny has ever been wrong, but after Zayn’s managed to peel himself out of bed and shower for a half hour, he thinks this is one such instance. The only thing that’s become clear after a night of sleep is that Zayn has some thinly veiled, potentially disastrous feelings for Niall that _might_ be out of the blue, though Zayn has a sneaking suspicion they’ve been accumulating in secret all these years.

"What do you like about him?" Harry asks, late one night after Zayn's fessed up because he couldn't stand how hard it was making his heart pound everywhere he went. Now that Harry knows, it feels a tad more manageable. "I mean, trust me, I know what there is to like," Harry grins. "I'd like to hear you say it, though. So I know it's not just the incubation of tour driving you mad."

Zayn turns his face sideways on the arm of the couch he's lying on, studies the carpeting of the bus. "He puts me at ease," he says first. "I get that he's a lot to handle sometimes, and like, I'm not always at that level, but. When he comes down to my level, he's the best thing for me." He licks his lips, which are drying out too easily in the bus air con. "And when I manage to get up to his, y'know? It's so fun. I don't have to worry, or stress, like. And if we can't be on the same level, it's fine. We don't always need to be in each others face. We just go with the flow." 

Harry nods sagely across from him, occupying lotus pose on the floor. "I can see that."

"And he's smart, and humble, and he tries so hard. He's strong where you wouldn't think it. And he's so... bright, right? Even when he's mad, he's like. Somehow cheerfully mad. And yeah, he gets stroppy when he's tired, but so do we all. And it's—sometimes it's cute, anyway."

"Uh hu-uh," Harry drawls, and Zayn realizes he'd been properly going, there. "Cute, huh?"

Zayn narrows his eyes at him and then fishes a pillow up to hide his face in. "He's cute, okay. Whatever, Harry, you already knew that." He's more than cute, actually, and it overwhelms Zayn sometimes, but Harry doesn't need to hear all about it.

Like the predictable sap he is, Harry goes right off anyway, "You want to _hold_ him, you want to _kiss_ him—" he squawks out of key when Zayn chucks the pillow at his face.

"Seriously, though," Zayn says, tempering. "What do you think?"

Harry tosses the pillow away from him and regains his composure, or as much composure as he can have with his Tarzan hair all over the place. "I think it sounds legit," he says. "I think you're freaking out a bit too much. Niall would do anything for you."

Zayn pouts. "But I want him to do it for himself, too."

Harry shrugs. "Guess you'll have to go ask him, then."

✤✤✤

Typically, when he’s confronted with an issue he isn’t sure how to deal with, taking space from it is helpful. So whether he notices it or not, Zayn ends up distancing himself from Niall for a few days, throwing himself into recording sessions and playing with Brooklyn and welcoming any other alternative to spending time with Niall and projecting proverbial heart eyes at him. 

It probably would have worked, had Niall not caught on prematurely. “Zayn,” he says as he corners him, sharper than his normal tone. It's a couple hours before a show so they’re already at the concert venue, and Niall’s voice echoes down the massive, concrete hallway. 

“All right?” Zayn asks, trying to stay calm as Niall takes him by his elbow and propels him into an empty room, the larger sort used for classes at conventions and such. Niall shuts the door behind them and then spins to face Zayn.

“You’ve been avoiding me.” 

Niall didn’t bother to hit the light switch, and the dim shadows only serve to make his anxious face look even more serious and guarded. Zayn wishes someone outside would call his name right this moment so he wouldn’t have to do this, but they don't. Niall immediately brings his hand up to bite at his nails, and Zayn knows he’s really stressed, then. Wants to reach out and drag Niall’s fingers away from his mouth but refrains. 

“I haven’t been trying to,” Zayn says. “Got busy with stuff, yeah? Brooklyn needed some babysitting. Y'know. Life.” 

Niall shifts from foot to foot; any faster and he’d be bouncing in his shoes. “So. It’s not because of, like. You know. Eric and," he gestures to himself, "Me.”

Zayn winces, internally kicking himself. Of course that’s what it would have seemed like to Niall—what was he thinking? “No, Niall, fuck. Definitely not.” He looks up to find Niall’s eyes stoic, lips thin, and he curses, reaching out to engulf him in a hug. “It’s really, really not. I’m sorry.” 

He can feel Niall relax in his arms, tension leaking out of him. “Okay,” Niall says. “Yeah, sorry. Just got a bit freaked out.”

Zayn pulls back and ruffles Niall’s hair; it has yet to be flooded with show hairspray so it’s damnably soft in his fingers. Zayn thinks it'll take a herculean effort to drop his hand and so he doesn’t. Instead he sinks them further into the thick bleached shock and pulls Niall in, kisses him light and careful.

He gets trembling hands pushing at his chest for that. “You can’t just kiss me like that,” Niall gasps, stricken. He takes a step back. “What are you doing?”

“That was,” Zayn says slowly, “admittedly not my best move.” He pinches the bridge of his nose for a moment and then holds his hands out, imploring. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have done that, but I’m—” he cuts himself off and drops Niall’s gaze. It's a horrific idea to do this right before a show, but Zayn feels like he can’t stop now. “I think I really like you, Nialler,” he says, abruptly feeling about the size of a balled up hedgehog. 

Niall's brow furrows. “Where is this coming from?” he says, fidgeting with the hem of his long t-shirt.

“The other night, when you said, um. In the lift, when you said, ‘Zayn’s not that way’? Yeah?” He looks up at Niall until he nods in dazed confirmation. “I know it shouldn’t have been a big deal but it—it really was. I stayed up all night about it, because like. I am that way a little bit, you know?” He takes a deep breath. “Maybe especially with you.” 

“I don’t get it,” Niall says. “Snap, just like that? In an instant, you like me?”

Zayn sighs and walks to the wall, turns and slides down it until he’s sitting. He’s too exhausted to have this conversation standing up. “No, it wasn’t instantaneous. I just didn’t really, fully realize it was happening before. The other night was like, when it became clear.” 

Niall runs a hand through his hair once, then again. “You just broke up with Perrie.”

How Zayn knows that isn’t a factor is how quickly he begins to justify it: it’s actually been months since they broke up, they hadn’t been close for a while before that, and he hasn’t exhibited reckless behavior otherwise since right after. It’s not like Zayn hasn’t thought about it. When he really tried to be honest about it, after his conversation with Harry, he realized he’d gravitated towards Niall for distraction at first, but that he hadn’t craved distraction from Perrie in some time. That he’d started seeking Niall out regardless of what mood he was in. “I know,” is all he says. 

Niall swallows visibly. “I don’t want to be your rebound or whatever, you know?”

Zayn tilts his head back against the wall and gazes at Niall, looking so flustered and small in this huge room. “You’re so much more than that to me already.” 

Niall makes a frustrated noise in the back of his throat. “So what you are talking about here? You like me? What does that mean? You want to fool around a little bit, more, less, what?”

“Well, obviously, I’m not talking about anything that you’re not interested in,” Zayn says, biting his lip. “Do you, like, have any feelings about this? About me?”

Niall's small laugh is hollow. “Zayn, you’re everyone’s wet fucking dream.” 

Zayn could feel flattered, could smirk, could ask if he’s Niall's, too. Instead he says, “Am I anything more than that?”

“You sodding asshole,” Niall mutters before moving to sit beside Zayn, lowering himself with caution to the hard ground. “You know I love you to the moon and fucking back, Malik.”

“Would you kiss me?” Zayn whispers, watches Niall’s eyes drop to his mouth. 

“Any hour of any day,” Niall says at length. He shudders at his own admission, a subtle quake that rocks his body. Zayn reaches out to steady him, leaves his palm lingering on his scarred knee. 

“What about this hour of this day?” he asks, trying to smile.

Niall groans, but reaches out and hooks Zayn closer to him with a sweaty hand around the back of his neck. “You’re gonna fuck me up,” he says under his breath, their lips hovering millimeters from one another.

“I’m gonna try so hard not to,” Zayn says, his attention darting from Niall’s low-lidded eyes and the crazed flush on the high of his cheeks, the dusting of his freckles. Niall’s answering giggle is slightly hysterical before he finally leans in, Zayn sighing into the sweet, unhurried kiss. Niall’s lips are a little dry but warm and lovely all the same.

“Wait,” Niall says, breaking off. “Is this violating your vow of celibacy?”

Zayn blinks once, twice. “I don’t even know what to say,” he huffs, amused. “A, you’d be an understandable violation. B, it’s just kissing, I’m not sure that counts as a sexual relation? But C, Niall, for the love of God.” He draws Niall in again and kisses him chastely. “There was never any vow. Didn’t I say that?”

“Oh, maybe, I dunno. Did you say that?” Niall fumbles. “I didn’t know if you were being serious,” he says, growing more flustered in the face of Zayn’s increasingly gleeful grin. “Have mercy.”

Zayn smiles, full on and wicked. “Gladly.” He presses a kiss to a freckle on the side of Niall’s neck, then moves up to kiss just under his bright red ear. 

“We have to talk later,” Niall says, breath weak and accent thickening. 

“Yes,” Zayn agrees as he moves down the line of Niall’s jaw. "We will." 

Niall’s chest hitches under his wandering hands. “About rules. Or. Things. Same page, we need to be on the same page.”

Zayn hums, moving to straddle Niall’s narrow lap. “Definitely,” he says, sincere but preoccupied at present.

“Fuck’s sake,” Niall breathes. “Just kiss me again.” 

“Any hour of any day,” Zayn recites, much to Niall’s delight, before swooping down to do just that.


End file.
